Tolerance Level
by TheMaraudersaremyhomies
Summary: Remus Lupin believes himself to have a high tolerance level, especially when it comes to Sirius Black. When his tolerance level is severely tested by a bad DADA class, a certain person shows another side that he'd never though possible.


**Tolerance Level**

Disclaimer: Okay. This is a oneshot. It contains slash too, so if you don't like that you can just click the back button and everyone will be happy. If you're going to flame my story, do it for a better reason. And I'm not JKR. Just saying.

Remus Lupin had a high tolerance level. He put up with James's incessant attempts to gain Lily's love, Peter's stash of food in the bottom drawer of their dresser that often attracted ants, and Sirius. Sirius got a category of his own, due to the never-ending parade of antics that occurred with him around. It wasn't that Remus didn't like him, though. He liked him fine, what he knew at least. Sirius was the happy one, the crazy one, the one who everyone adored. He, like James, never seemed to have a single problem. Ever. But somehow what could be admired in James had to be put up with in Sirius. Remus didn't know, it just seemed like there was nothing behind all that exuberance, all that glamour.

But there was one thing that Remus knew he wouldn't be able to tolerate, and that was the upcoming Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. This year, they were focusing on dark creatures, like Hinkypunks, Grindylows, and Werewolves. Werewolves. It hadn't taken a genius to realize that as the remaining stack of pages grew thinner and thinner, a lesson on the werewolf grew closer. The day had come when there were no more pages left until the chapter on werewolves, and Remus debated faking sick, taking refuge in the hospital wing. Or maybe skipping class without any excuse. But he was a prefect, and that kind of behavior wouldn't do. So, foolhardily enough, he decided to push his tolerance level beyond it's normal limits and attempt to sit though the class. As he walked into the classroom, he already knew how terrible of an idea this had been. They had DADA with the Slytherins, and Remus could hear the terrible comments they'd make even now. A dark smile flitted across his lips as he sat down in between Sirius and James.

"Hey Moony!" Sirius smiled, and Remus sighed. So oblivious. It was lucky he was so adorable, Remus though, or someone might kill him. James shifted to his right.

"You don't look well, Remus. Let me take you to the hospital wing." James suggested in an overly loud voice, making half of the class look towards them. Remus turned to him, ears red. Did he really look that bad?

"James! Pipe down." Remus said, grabbing his friend's arm. "I know I don't look to good, but I'll be fine, just as soon as we get out of here."

"Look, you idiot, I know what we're learning about today and we decided you shouldn't have to sit though this. You put up with enough." James told him, wriggling out of his grasp. Remus scowled.

"I'll be fine, James. Stop being all noble, stupid Gryffindor. It isn't very flattering," Remus said, turning to face the blackboard with a resolved look on his face. Professor Aldridge walked in, and after putting a few books down on her desk and looking at her chair carefully to make sure it wasn't full of frog spawn again (courtesy of msr. Sirius Black), she began the lesson.

"Okay, since I wasn't here last year and you seem to have a very patchy education on dark creatures, I need you to tell me what you know about werewolves, and we'll go from there." Professor Aldridge said. Several students raised their hands, most of them Slytherin. Remus laughed a little, and Peter looked at him like he was mad. Perhaps he was. Perhaps he really was mad and Peter and James had the right idea. But if he was mad, he was an independent mad wizard at least. For once, he appreciated Sirius's lack of emotional intelligence most greatly. Professor Aldridge called on Alicia Greengrass.

"Well, even though they look human, they aren't really. Right? They'll always be a monster, no matter how normal they seem." Alicia said, with some murmurs of assent from Gryffindors. Professor Aldridge's eyes shot to Remus in an apologetic manner, but it wasn't enough to stop the air from going out of him. James growled something under his breath and shot up his hand, while Peter looked concerned to do anything for fear of offending Remus further. She was right, really, Remus thought. No matter how accepting his friends were, no matter how much his mother loved him, he'd always be a monster. There was a wolf inside of him, and no one had ever once quite understood. Understood the feeling of being wrong inside somehow, of having instincts he needed to suppress, or have something in them that was always waiting to spring, to get out. Remus was pulled out of his thoughts as James was called on.

"That's not true!" James said, "It's not like they can help it. It's only once a month, too. It's just prejudiced fools who still believe that bladderdash." Before Professor Aldridge could stop it, a fight broke out between the Gryffindors and Slytherins, and even Peter leaped up to join it. Remus sat silently at his desk during the pandemonium. It was the worst, really, that his friends thought better of him, didn't understand his burden. He finally looked up, and to his surprise saw that Sirius was still next to him, eyes filled with empathy.

"Let's get out of here." Sirius said, grabbing Remus's hand tightly. Remus sat, shocked. "Come on! If we leave now, Aldridge won't notice. She's too busy pulling James off the idiot Slytherins." Unthinkingly, Remus got up and noded, holding tight to Sirius's hand as they run from the classroom. The hallways were filled with people who could catch them skipping, and so they kept running, running up and down stairways until they were finally at the top of the astronomy tower, which wasn't in use that month due to a heavy cloud cover. Winded, they walked in small circles, gazing out at the grounds below until finally Remus couldn't take it anymore.

"Why?" He asked Sirius, who had stopped pacing and stood still for once. For once, he assumed that Sirius would understand the subtlety of the question, the different shades of the word and their meanings, the small hopes that they contained.

"You needed to get out of there. Prongs means well but, well, he's Prongs. How's he supposed to understand how it feels?" Sirius asked, looking at Remus with an expression he cannot place, his gray eyes muddled with emotion. Remus snorts.

"And you do?" He asked, and instantly regretted it. He had the funniest urge to grab Siriu's hand once more, and hold it tightly. Sirius smiled, but it wasn't the simple grin Remus was accustomed to; it was a sarcastic smile at best.

"Not exactly. I'm not a werewolf. But I know that it doesn't just go away. It torments you, makes you wonder if you're whole, makes you have to shove something down every day. You feel dirty, you try to hide behind some type of mask." Remus drew a breath, a tear falling down his cheek.

"How did you know?" Remus asked Sirius, his throat tight. "How on earth could you understand someone like me so completely? You're Sirius."

"There's a lot I don't like to talk about." Sirius told him, voice wavering a little. He drew closer to Remus, and wiped the tears from his face. Remus took a second look at his friend, and for the first time saw the real Sirius, the one without the spark, without the laughter in his eyes. Had he been so blinded in his own problems he hand never noticed Sirius's?

"Tell me." Remus commanded this stranger, "Tell me." Sirius took a few steps away from him, and sighed.

"Where am I supposed to start?" Sirius asked, and looked more like a boy than the almost man Remus knew so well. "Well, I guess you know a little about my brother. He's in Slytherin, remember?" Remus nodded, and Sirius continued, dread in his tone. "All my family have been in Slytherin. Every Black except me. I was never the same as anyone in my family. I figured everything would be better once I got here, fulfilled what they wanted me to. Then I got into Gryffindor. I remember going to Dumbledore, begging him to fix it. He was worried, tried to talk to them." Sirius paused, snorting. "Walburga Black didn't take kindly to Albus Dumbledore, and that's the understatement of the century. Anyhow, I started to figure if people couldn't see anything wrong, there wouldn't be. But the illusion always shattered when I went home in the summer." Remus sat silent, looking at Sirius in an ashamed manner. He thought himself to be so perceptive, yet he'd missed this? He'd missed Sirius's scars because he'd been so busy covering his own? Mistook the mask Sirius wore for who he really was? Another tear rolled down his cheek. "Hey." Sirius said in a comforting voice, "Hey. I'm supposed to be the one who gets to cry this time, eh?"

Remus didn't think twice before he wrapped his arms around the taller boy, resting his head in Sirius's chest. Sirius pulled him tighter, until their limbs knit together and absorbed the other's hurt. And it is like this that Remus Lupin and Sirius Black unintentionally fall in love. When James and Sirius manage the animagus transformation, Remus can tell that Sirius was really behind it all, and the dog runs faithfully beside the wolf each full moon. And when Sirius runs away from home, Remus is the first one he really talks to about it. They are each broken in their own ways, and yet together they are oddly beautiful in their pain. Remus stops feeling so sorry for himself, Sirius begins to not have to pretend to be so happy. And when the two confused boys finally face their own feelings at graduation, they realize what everyone else has known for years: they love each other.

Remus began to fear for Sirius as they grew closer. Any couple in the order made each other targets, and he knew he couldn't handle it if the dark mark appeared over the small flat they shared while he was out, couldn't stand the idea of seeing Sirius's body limp and lifeless, all laughter gone out of his beautiful gray eyes. So he distances himself from the man he loves dearly, and Sirius begins to fear, to believe that the wolf has finally won in him. Remus wasn't home the night it happened. He heard about it the next day in the prophet. And as the years stretch by, Remus begins to curse his stupidity. Why hadn't he just skipped Defense Against The Dark Art that day so long ago? Why had he let himself be so understood, be so loved if it only was going to be ripped from him?

Sometimes he worries for Sirius. He deserves to die, yes, but he cannot stand the thought of Sirius, so prone to depression, locked up with dementors. He has loved him for far too long not to feel pain.

Remus Lupin no longer gives Sirius a whole category on his list of things he could put up with. Sirius, he discovered, wasn't something that one could just put up with. You loved him, you hated him, but no one just put up with him. Remus Lupin's tolerance level had been shattered, and he no longer knew


End file.
